Overview

In The Power of a Tale: Stories from the Israel Folktale Archives, editors Haya Bar-Itzhak and Idit Pintel-Gensberg bring together a collection of fifty-three folktales celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Israel Folktale Archives (IFA) at the University of Haifa. Established by the folklorist Dov Noy in the 1950s, the IFA is theonly archive of its kind in Israel and serves as a center for knowledge and information concerning the cultural heritage of the many ethnic communities in Israel. For this jubilee volume, contributors each selected stories from the more than 24,000 preserved in the archives and wrote an accompanying analytic essay. Stories selected represent 26 different ethnic groups in Israel, 22 of them Jewish. The narrators of the stories come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and education levels. They include both men and women of various ages who worked in diverse fields. Some were long settled in Israel while others were recent arrivals when their stories were collected and transcribed. They all shared one conspicuous quality—their talent as storytellers. The stories they tell encompass a myriad of genres and themes, including mythical tales,historical legends, sacred legends, demon legends, realistic legends, märchen of various sorts, novellas, jokes and anecdotes, and personal narratives. Contributors employ diverse approaches to analyze and interpret the stories. The methods applied include the classic comparative approach, which looks at tale types, oikotypes, and motifs; formalism, which considers narrative roles and narrative functions; structuralism, which aims to uncover a story’s deep structure and its binary oppositions; a psychological approach, which analyzes the tales using psychological theories, ranging from Freud to Lacan; Marxist theory, which sees the folktale as an expression of the class struggle; and more. Translated for the first time into English, the stories included and accompanying essays are evidence of the lively research being conducted today on folk literature. Scholars and students interested in Jewish folklore and literature will appreciate this diverse collection as will readers interested in Jewish and Israeli culture.

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Reviews

The texts in The Power of a Tale are not only traditional and authentic; they are also enjoyable, illuminating, and entertaining. Collectively they cover a vast range of genres, types, and topics, and come from Jewish, Arab, and Druze cultures. Readers will also gain knowledge and pleasure from the folkloristic commentaries that enrich our appreciation for the tales.-- (06/28/2019) The Power of a Tale makes available in English a grand trove of well-traveled stories direct from the lips of expressive tellers. It is a rich collection indeed with narrative treasures derived from all over the world. Ably illuminated and set in context by adroit, sensitive commentators, these stories and the narrators who share them stir the imagination and open unprecedented cultural vistas on the vitality of oral tradition.-- (06/28/2019)

Like our dreams, folktales do not engage in character development. Logical connections between events are not linear. However, the stories tell us about the fundamental values of the narrating society, particularly among the non-elites. One needn't be a folklore scholar to appreciate The Power of a Tale. -- (12/12/2019) The Power of a Tale makes available in English a grand trove of well-traveled stories direct from the lips of expressive tellers. It is a rich collection indeed with narrative treasures derived from all over the world. Ably illuminated and set in context by adroit, sensitive commentators, these stories and the narrators who share them stir the imagination and open unprecedented cultural vistas on the vitality of oral tradition.-- (06/28/2019) The texts in The Power of a Tale are not only traditional and authentic; they are also enjoyable, illuminating, and entertaining. Collectively they cover a vast range of genres, types, and topics, and come from Jewish, Arab, and Druze cultures. Readers will also gain knowledge and pleasure from the folkloristic commentaries that enrich our appreciation for the tales.-- (06/28/2019)

Like our dreams, folktales do not engage in character development. Logical connections between events are not linear. However, the stories tell us about the fundamental values of the narrating society, particularly among the non-elites. One needn't be a folklore scholar to appreciate The Power of a Tale. -- (12/12/2019) a charming book . . . provide[s] sometimes surprising insights into those stories, reflecting the various academic perspectives of the scholarly writers.-- (01/22/2020) The texts in The Power of a Tale are not only traditional and authentic; they are also enjoyable, illuminating, and entertaining. Collectively they cover a vast range of genres, types, and topics, and come from Jewish, Arab, and Druze cultures. Readers will also gain knowledge and pleasure from the folkloristic commentaries that enrich our appreciation for the tales.-- (06/28/2019) The Power of a Tale makes available in English a grand trove of well-traveled stories direct from the lips of expressive tellers. It is a rich collection indeed with narrative treasures derived from all over the world. Ably illuminated and set in context by adroit, sensitive commentators, these stories and the narrators who share them stir the imagination and open unprecedented cultural vistas on the vitality of oral tradition.-- (06/28/2019)

Like our dreams, folktales do not engage in character development. Logical connections between events are not linear. However, the stories tell us about the fundamental values of the narrating society, particularly among the non-elites. One needn't be a folklore scholar to appreciate The Power of a Tale. -- (12/12/2019) The texts in The Power of a Tale are not only traditional and authentic; they are also enjoyable, illuminating, and entertaining. Collectively they cover a vast range of genres, types, and topics, and come from Jewish, Arab, and Druze cultures. Readers will also gain knowledge and pleasure from the folkloristic commentaries that enrich our appreciation for the tales.-- (06/28/2019) The Power of a Tale makes available in English a grand trove of well-traveled stories direct from the lips of expressive tellers. It is a rich collection indeed with narrative treasures derived from all over the world. Ably illuminated and set in context by adroit, sensitive commentators, these stories and the narrators who share them stir the imagination and open unprecedented cultural vistas on the vitality of oral tradition.-- (06/28/2019)

Author Information

Haya Bar-Itzhak is a professor emerita of literature and folklore at the University of Haifa, Israel. She is chair of the department of Communication at the Max Stern Yezreel Valley College. She served in the past as chair of the department of Hebrew and Comparative Literature, head of folklore studies, and the academic director of the Israel Folktale Archives at the University of Haifa. She has published eleven books, among them Israeli Folk Narratives: Settlement, Immigration, Ethnicity (Wayne State University Press, 2005). Idit Pintel-Ginsberg, Ph.D., is a researcher of Jewish culture, focusing on folk literature, intangible cultural heritage preservation, Jewish cultural symbolism, and folklore in rabbinical and medieval Jewish thought and its interaction with contemporary cultural issues as rituals, festivals, magic, and demonology. For the past decade she served as the academic coordinator of the Israel Folktale Archives. She is also the author of The Angel and the Hamin, a compilation of IFA folktales centered on food and foodways.

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